Public Broadcasting is the title of my art installation which questions how much freedom we, as civilians, are allowed to have in spreading our messages and information. To what extent do we still have ‘public’ space, virtual, physical or radio waves, available to express ourselves the way we really want to? What is public domain?

Nowadays, these questions are often asked in the debate about freedom. Currently a discussion is going on about ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). In The Netherlands some ISP’s have been told to censor the website The Pirate Bay which is a platform for people to share their files. A complete medium has come under attack.

To provoke a discussion about this I have chosen to make an art installation to be used in the public domain. ‘Public Broadcasting’ is an installation which allows people to send their message into the air with a FM-transmitter. One problem arises: this is strictly forbidden. Radio frequencies have been sold years ago to large corporate institutions. Nowadays it is prohibited to use radio communication without a permit. The exclusive rights have been sold to corporations.

So, what about the Internet? Will ACTA be a precursor for what happened to the radio? What does it mean for freedom of opinion when governments think corporations are more important than the voices of the civilians they’re suppose to serve? Isn’t it upsetting that the negotiations about the content and implications of ACTA all have been done in secret? What will the consequences be for your freedom when governments sell your rights on freedom of the exchange of information to corporations? How will your perception of the world change when only a few companies decide what you will see or hear? Are you prepared to break the law to be able to share your information?

Concept sketch

Currently I am working on a prototype for a new artwork. I am trying to make an architectural material consisting of audio. More info will be posted here soon.

In the beginning of last year I decided to make silkscreen prints of images that were processed by Bitquid. Now the moment is finally here… I finished the first two prints:

Silkscreen prints 'Moon' and 'Egg'

These exclusive silkscreen prints are a very limited edition full-color (CMYK) silkscreen prints on high-quality wooden panels (50 x 50 cm). If you are interested in purchasing one of these prints, feel free to contact me.

Both prints will be shown along with a video of the working installation at the EmergeAndSee exhibition in Berlin from the 3rd till the 5th of June.

'Egg'

'Moon'

These prints were made at Grafisch Atelier Daglicht. I want to thank them for generously helping me with their expertise. These prints are also made with the support of The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, known in the Netherlands as Fonds BKVB.

Silkscreen printing

Silkscreen printing

Silkscreen printing

Detail

Graphic Design Festival Catalogue

After a 2-day exhibition at Tweakfest in Zurich I am now exhibiting Bitquid for the next 3 weeks at the Graphic Design Festival in Breda, The Netherlands. Bitquid will be shown at the festival’s Decoding exhibition among several other interesting projects.

This time, Bitquid will render a series of images of which I will make exclusive full colour silkscreen prints. If you are interested in these prints, please contact me at: info [*at*]  jeroenholthuis [*dot*] nl.

Finally some proper HD video documentation of Bitquid. This video has been shot while exhibiting in Riga. All credits go out to Laura Frinberga and her colleague Ritvars Lasmanis from Ideju Forums. Thank you for filming, montaging and generously sharing this material! I hope you like the edits I made afterwards.

The High Definition version can be viewed on Vimeo.

Photos by Ansis Starks

Check out the pictures made of the exhibition and opening night at the Art+Communication 2009: Energy exhibition in Riga, Latvia. It had been a great and pleasant experience for me to be part of it.

OK Periodicals Repeat Issue

OK Periodicals index

I am very pleased OK Periodicals Repeat issue just arrived. It looks beautiful! The special renders as well some pictures of Bitquid got featured in it. You should get yourself a copy.

Bitquid in OK Periodicals magazine

Bitquid in OK Periodicals magazine

Egg

Chicken

A few months before going to Riga I was working hard to get my contribution finished for a new issue of OK Periodicals magazine. This time they made an issue based on the theme ‘Repeat’. For this magazine I made some special images. After tweaking Bitquid for a long time I got some beautiful images rendered. It took Bitquid about 13 hours to complete these images of 400 x 400 pixels. The results are better than I could imagine in the beginning. I really like this egg I have been rendering. Interesting is that this chicken was rendered twice resulting each time in an unique image. The uncertain process (the use of liquids) by which the images get ‘copied’ is really something that appeals me in this work.

Patterns generated for tweaking my setup

I was asked to contribute to the next issue of OK Periodicals magazine. These are a few test I made so I could tweak the settings of my system to make it process images better. These patterns are generated by a little program I wrote in Processing. As you can see, Bitquid starts to make images with more and more resemblance to the original ones. The great thing about these repetitive patterns is that they turn into less repetitive images due to the influences of the analogue world (the liquids) which the data is transferred through. Click on the image to see the results more clear.